I'm planning to become a certified triathlon coach as well as a personal trainer. I want to incorporate my vegan lifestyle as well as the importance of following a plant based diet with my clients but I'm worried about scaring some people away (since I do need income). Also deciding on a business name.... I would like it to have something to do a plant based diet but again I don't want to scare away non-vegans that are just looking for a training plan. Advice? Opinions?

Honestly? I think you might need to incorporate SOME non-vegan foods into clients' meals at first. 90% of people (even health nuts) have a hard time imagining themselves on a fully vegan diet. I think your best bet might be to include SMALL amounts of (preferably local, grass-fed, organic) meats in plans that are otherwise entirely vegan. When you have convinced people to cut down their meat consumption drastically, it becomes much easier later on to convince them to go fully vegan.

Also you have the convenience of triathlons working well with vegan diets. If you had bodybuilding clients you would have a tougher time getting them vegan.

I think the name can be anything based on 'health' or 'organic' or other words that we often associate with the vegan lifestyle, but that don't necessarily scream I'M VEGAN AND YOU SHOULD BE TOO. Picking a name is tough, and I'm sorry I don't have any good ideas!

Not to hijack your thread, but this year ive seriously considered wanting to learn more about personal training and nutrition and find a way to make a living out of it. Ive found these online classes and would like some input on them as a starting point.

this is one of my pipe dreams, although i have a regular 9-5 in social work. need to start thinking about getting certified in P/T. i agree with the other posters that unfortunately ppl have messed up ideas about nutrition and protein as it relates to plant based nutrition so a client base might be hard if you are that strict with the diet.

As far as the dieting goes, maybe set the example that it can be done vegan, but don't try and push it so hard. Eating healthy is common sense for the most part and teaching that is pretty simple. As for going vegan, I'm totally new to this and learning as i go, and its almost overwhelming for me as i try and figure it all out. But I'm VERY eager to learn.

It may seem like a pipe dream for now, but im pretty determined to do this somehow.

To anyone who is thinking of becoming a PT....DO IT! You'll love it! If you're a positive person and you love to workout clients will just fall in your lap. Law of attraction. I've just gone through my courses in British Columbia and the one thing I've learned is to stay within your scope of practice, meaning if your not a certified nutritionist be careful giving nutrition advice. If your client has health problems that can be tracked back to your advice, you could be in trouble. Just a thought. If you take even a crash course in nutrition with some sort of certification, you will be much better off.